The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!
Chapter One
A/N: This is an AU re-write/updating of the written but unproduced ep, "Theora's Tale".
TITLE CARD: 26 KIDS AND COUNTING
ANNOUNCER VOICE-OVER:
"Time now for '26 Kids and Counting'!"
CUT TO:
A stout middle-aged woman with disheveled blond hair and a baby on one knee faces the camera.
"I feel that the Lord has blessed us with 26 kids," the woman says to the camera as she bounces the baby on her knee. Behind her, children ranging in age from infants and toddlers to five- and six-year-olds crawl and run around the room screaming, crying, shouting, and otherwise causing chaos.
"We have a child for every letter of the alphabet," the woman continues. "The oldest is Aaron, the youngest is Zachary ..." At this point, a child begins crying off-camera.
"ISAIAH! JEREMIAH!" the woman calls out to the off-camera children. "QUIT TEASING WILLIAM!" The woman then gets up and walks towards the unseen children.
STATIC
FADE IN:
At four-thirty in the morning, Theora walked back to her apartment from Tom's Mini-Mart carrying a bagel and a cup of coffee.
All at once, a black SUV pulled up alongside the curb. As the SUV came to a stop, two men dressed head-to-toe in black poured out of the vehicle.
One man grabbed Theora by the throat and smothered her face with a chloroform-soaked rag, knocking her unconscious and causing to drop her coffee and bagel.
The two men quickly dragged the unconscious Theora back into the SUV, shut the door behind them, and sped away into the night.
"I just got off the phone with Dick Best," said Murray to Edison. The two were meeting in Murray's office.
"Dick Best? The billionaire?" Edison exclaimed. "THE Dick Best?"
Murray nodded. "The very same," he said. "He wants to see us."
"What for?"
"It's about Theora," Murray replied. "She's been kidnapped."
"KIDNAPPED?"
Murray nodded. "She was taken off the street earlier this morning."
"What does she have to do with Dick Best?"
Murray licked his lips. "She's his daughter."